IPv6 Launch: The internet changes on Wednesday

On Wednesday the internet society will be launching IPv6 due to IP addresses being depleted. IPv6 will allow the internet to keep on growing.

Without IPv6, internet users will be forced to go through a transitional gateway when they visit a site that is using IPv4, and this will make the user's experience slower. When launch day rolls around (which is today) owners of websites are encouraged to enable IPv6.

According to Mashable, John Curran, the president and CEO of the American Registry for Internet Numbers, said that the launch of IPv6 is bigger than people realize. Curran said that IPv6 is the internet's largest upgrade ever.

According to ZDNet, sometime Wednesday many major ISPs and websites will offer their services with IPv6 in additional to IPv4. Comcast, Time-Warner Cable, Google, Microsoft and Facebook are some of the companies that will be offering IPv6. Throughout the past few years these companies have been working on deploying IPv6.

According to EVDO Info, IPv6 has a few advantages over IPv4. IPv4 only has 32 bits of address space while IPv6 has 128 bits.

The internet is basically running out of IPv4 addresses and this is why IPv6 is necessary. IPv6 will also bring an enhanced Quality of service for gaming, video/audio and for IP telephony.